Country Needs Welfare Reform, But It Needs Compassion In Equal Measure

December 17, 1994|By JIM SPENCER Newport News Daily Press

O God of compassion, when we have more than we need, we believe it is only our just dessert. When others have less than they need, we believe it is their just dessert. We are satisfied to respond to others' need with charity, not justice. When the poor demand justice, we withdraw even charity and call it fairness. Our charity helps us be callous more than it helps those who endure hard lives. Teach us the justice of Christ, and grant us the gentleness of your Holy Spirit.

I prayed that prayer at a Methodist church service. But it wasn't until Mary Jim Spencer is a columnist for the Newport News Daily Press, 7505 Warwick Blvd., Newport News, Va. 23607.

Banks called me at work that its meaning finally hit home.

Banks was upset by what she had seen last Friday at the Hampton (Va.) Nutrition Center. Banks saw dozens of people forced to stand outside in a cold rain in order to pick up food stamps.

"It made me feel really bad," said Banks, a 47-year-old housekeeper at Langley Air Force Base. "There were old people out there, people of all races. To me, they were treating all those people like deadbeats. They lined them up and degraded them. As a taxpayer, I don't want people treated that way. Did they mean to degrade them, is it just poor management, or is it that they just don't care?'' I wonder.

But more to the point, I wonder how many other Americans would look at what Mary Banks saw and instead of seeing victims, see a bunch of lazy free

loaders reaching for a handout.

In these days of welfare reform, bashing the poor has become a national sport. The superstar of this blame game is the incoming speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. It's their fault, Newt Gingrich tells us, when he speaks of the poor and their problems.

We are only too happy to believe him. It has to be their fault. We didn't create the underclass. We didn't make unwed teen-age girls have babies they can't take care of. We didn't make anybody drop out of school without the skills to find or keep a job.

The chorus of the current welfare reform is not "He's not heavy; he's my brother."It's "Let's dump this dead weight."

We are close to deciding that certain Americans, namely the least of us, aren't entitled to health care, housing and food. Those who are hard up can count their blessings for anything the rest of us deign to give them. Above all, no one should ever complain about what they must go through to get it.

Right now, the only thing in limitless supply for America's poor is contempt. The new notion in this nation is that poverty is a character flaw. Although they have never been terms of endearment, the words "welfare queen" have been expanded into a catch-all phrase that describes anyone receiving public assistance. This lets those who don't need help replace consolation with condemnation for those who do.

When political leaders encourage it, the transition from benevolence to malevolence is easy.

Of course, too many children are born out of wedlock. Of course, too many people have grown to depend on welfare checks to pay for clothes, food stamps to pay for food and housing subsidies to pay for rent. Things are certainly out of control.

In this column, I've called for laws that would force welfare mothers and the fathers of their children to use involuntary birth control in exchange for public assistance. I've also endorsed residential schools for the children of the underclass that in some ways approximate the orphanages Gingrich talks about.

There's no question this country needs radical welfare reform. But, as folks like Mary Banks remind us, what it needs just as desperately is a conscience.